Recognising the critical role of sharing research data for global communities to respond to, coordinate and manage effective response strategies to outbreaks, in 2018, the GloPID-R data sharing working group developed principles to guide the system for data sharing in a Public Health Emergency (PHE). These principles were then translated into a strategic framework in the GloPID-R Roadmap for Data Sharing in a PHE in 2019, drawing on findings from commissioned case studies and a review of current policies with regard to data sharing polices.
The Roadmap outlines recommendations for funders to accelerate effective data sharing among their grantees, to influence funding practice across what funders fund, and how they fund it. Here, we go a step further, providing members with a suite of tools to support their implementation of the Roadmap, including a publicly available guide, with a pragmatic set of actions for funders to adopt.
The roadmap provided the GloPID-R membership with a framework of where funders ought to act to prepare a research ecosystem that has the capacity, capability, and incentives to share the data it generates during and in response to a health emergency. In October 2023, during GloPID-R’s annual General Assembly, members requested that the GloPID-R Data Sharing Working Group work to support the membership in implementing the recommendations made in the Roadmap.
Through 2024, the Data Sharing Working Group, supported by the GloPID-R Research and Policy Team, led an extensive consultation and research to understand how the Roadmap’s recommendations are currently being implemented, funders’ future intentions for implementation, and how action can better align with researchers’ evolving needs. This work included a mapping review of funders’ current policies and practices against the Roadmap’s recommendations and a series of roundtable meetings. The series included 17 research funding organisations represented across the three meetings. One meeting was also co-convened with the CERCLE coalition to gain the perspectives of researchers, particularly on building and sustaining capacity.
The structure of the guide is in direct alignment with the Roadmap; it provides funders with actions to improve data sharing by their grantees, actions for funders to improve data sharing by other stakeholders and actions to foster a culture and create an infrastructure where data sharing is an integral part of research.
The guide was made publicly available on April 29, 2025 at a meeting of funders, data managers and policymakers in Annecy, France. Here, funders discussed how GloPID-R can further support implementation and priorities for collective action across the coalition.
As well as mapping funders’ policies and practices, the working group systematically captured the resources funders shared with their grantees to guide and support data sharing. Here, we present a collection of relevant resources, including data management plan guidelines, templates, examples and support, guidance to support data sharing, and details of recommended repositories.
Access to the resources in this spreadsheet will be optimised over the next month.
The GloPID-R Secretariat is a project which receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme and UK Research and Innovation [grant number 10061268].
The GloPID-R Secretariat is a project which receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101094188.